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Reprinted from The American Jouriuil of Sociology, Vol. X, No. 6, May, 1 905 



tHE POPULAR INITIATIVE AS A 
METHOD OF LEGISLATION AND 
POLITICAL CONTROL 



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PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 



Reprinted from The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. X, No. 6, May, 1905 



THE POPULAR INITIATIVE AS A 
METHOD OF LEGISLATION AND 
POLITICAL CONTROL 



WILLIAM HORACE BROWN 



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PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS 






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THE AMERICAN 

JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 



VOLUME X MAY, 1905 NUMBER 6 



THE POPULAR INITIATIVE AS A METHOD OF 
LEGISLATION AND POLITICAL CONTROL 

The popular initiative is usually referred to under the dual 
title of " the initiative and referendum." Its advocates treat of it 
as an extension of the referendum; its promotion is largely 
through the agitation of referendum leagues ; and for these rea- 
sons the two terms seem to be generally, although erroneously, 
regarded as synonymous. 

It is the object of this paper to show the difference between 
the initiative power and the referendum, and to point out the 
revolutionary principle imbedded in the initiative as advocated by 
its propagandists for adoption in the United States. 

The scheme of the initiative includes : ( i ) " direct legislation " 
(the proposal of laws by petition and the adoption of them by 
majority vote) ; (2) the " veto of the people " (the submission by 
petition of laws passed by legislative bodies to the voters for sanc- 
tion or rejection) ; (3) the "recall," or imperative mandate, by 
which through petition a faction, being displeased with the action 
of a public official, may require him to go before the voters again 
at any time against another candidate for the office, and if the 
official fails to receive a majority of the votes, he is dismissed, and 
the opponent holds the office for the remainder of the term. 

The "recall" and the "veto" are the negative side of the 
general plan for substituting government by petition and the 
popular voice for government by representation. 

713 



714 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 

The referendum proper, in its different forms, may mean one 
thing or another : ( i ) the voluntary, or optional, referendum, by 
which legislatures or councils may submit laws which they have 
passed for adoption or rejection; (2) the obligatory referendum, 
under which certain laws (usually those affecting public policy or 
large expenditures of public money) must be so submitted; (3) 
what may be termed the sentimental referendum, generally 
referred to as the " Public Policy Law," which requires the elec- 
tion officials, whenever petitioned by a certain percentage of 
voters, to place upon the ballot questions of public policy merely 
for the purpose of ascertaining the sentiment of those who vote 
thereon. The obligatory referendum and the popular initiative 
have been advocated for years by national and state leagues, and 
of late nowhere more persistently than in Illinois. The senti- 
mental referendum is already in use in this state, and will be 
reverted to. 

Thus the radical difference between the two, and the decep- 
tion of constantly yoking them together, is readily seen. By the 
initiative it is proposed that the people may directly control 
legislation, upon a petition of a certain percentage of the voters, 
from 5 to 15, according to different times and places; this petition 
making it obligatory to place the question desired upon the ballot, 
" the action of the majority of electors to be final." i Should it be 
a question affecting a whole state, the petition must be a per- 
centage of the voters in the state, the majority of the same. 
Should the question affect only a political subdivision, the petition 
and the majority apply only to such subdivision. But in either 
case there is to be no appeal from the majority voting on the 
question. 

!In spite of occasional protests to the contrary, the popular 
initiative is founded upon the general theory that representative 
I government in this country is a failure. It implies also that con- 
,1 stitutibnal government is a failure. Assuming this, it proposes 
/' I to give the people en masse law-making powers independent of 
and superior to legislatures and councils; and laws thus enacted 
must stand as final, in defiance of constitutions or supreme courts. 
It proposes legislation without deliberation, lodges all veto power 



POPULAR INITIATIVE 7 ^ 5 

in the popular ballot,, and in its last results transforms a constitu- 
tional representative government into an unconstitutional irre- 
sponsible democracy. 

It is argued, usually with much vehemence, that " the people " 
have been deprived of the privilege of self-government, or at least 
of expressing their will by their votes. The first of the three 
questions of public policy proposed by the Referendum League of 
Illinois voted for on the separate ballot at the general election in 
November, 1902, was for a constitutional amendment to give the 
voters of the state power to initiate legislation upon petition, and 
rounded out the statement of the question by this stump exhorta- 
tion : " thus restoring to the people the power they once held, but 
which they delegated to the general assembly by the constitution." 
Similar amendments have been sought in a majority of the states 
in the Union. 

It is explained that there was a time when the people of the 
United States as a whole, having freed themselves from the 
domination of a foreign power, held all political power and 
privileges in themselves, and unwisely delegated it when they 
established a government by representatives under national and 
state constitutions. Advocates of the initiative continually refer 
to the New England town-meeting as the most perfect system 
ever invented for real self-government. They are fond of quot- 
ing Thomas Jefferson to the effect that " the wisest invention ever 
devised by the wit of man for the perfect exercise of self- 
government and for its preservation is the New England town- 
meeting." They also quote Professor John Fisk|: 

Government by town-meeting is the form of government most effectively 
under watch and control. Everything is done in the full daylight of publicity. 
The town-meeting is the best political training-school in existence. 

And also Mr. James Bryce, author of The American Common- 
ivealth, who remarked : 

The town-meeting has been the most perfect school of self-government in 

any modern country It has been not only the source, but the school of 

democracy. 

Professor Frank Parsons, lecturer in the Boston University 
Law School, one of the ablest and m.ost radical advocates of the 
initiative, says : 



7l6 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 

For nearly twenty years after the founding of Plymouth Colony, in what 
is now Massachusetts, the law-making was done in primary assembly of the 
freemen every quarter, and when the colony grew so large that it was difficult 
for the people to meet in this way four times a year, it was provided that 
every town should elect two delegates to join the bench in enacting all such 
ordinances as should be judged good and wholesome, and that the whole body 
of citizens should meet once a year to have a general oversight of the doings 
of the delegates, repeal any of their acts that were deemed prejudicial to the 
whole, and pass such new measures as might be needful in the judgment of the 
people. That was the referendum almost as it is advocated today. 

In another place this author says : 

The change from legislation by the people to legislation by final vote of a 
body of representatives chosen for a specific term was a transformation fraught 

with the most momentous consequences The representatives can and do 

make and put in force many laws the people do not desire, and they neglect or 
refuse to make some laws the people do desire. Between elections the sover- 
eign power of controlling legislation is not in the hands of the people, but in 
the hands of a small body of men called representatives. It appears, therefore, 
that the changes from legislation by the voters in person to legislation by 
delegates was a change from a real democracy to an elective democracy. It 
was a change in which self-government was fettered, and the soul of liberty 
was lost. This is not a government by the people, but a government by an 
aristocracy of office-holders. 

All of the writers consulted who advocate " direct legislation " 
express themselves in similar terms. These enthusiasts shut their 
eyes to the vast change both in numbers and character of popu- 
lation in the United States since the colonial period. Not one of 
them takes any note of the fact, which has been demonstrated so 
often and completely that practically no one can be found to 
dispute it, that a system of law-making in popular assembly 
answering well the requirements of primitive or small rural 
communities fails miserably wherever the population is dense and 
heterogeneous ; that in every city in the country it has either been 
abandoned, or has become the source or cause of the very worst 
feature of political corruption. In large towns and cities the sys- 
tem has invariably been seized upon by political pirates as a means 
of defeating the will of the citizens and of robbing the taxpayers. 

While the initiative protagonists nowhere acknowledge this, 
they seem to realize its truth, and seek to adapt the town-meeting 
system to great and often turbulent populations by substituting 



POPULAR INITIATIVE 7 1 7 

the ballot for the village assembly. They dwell with great 
emphasis upon the misrepresentation of delegates in legislatures 
and councils, upon the alleged fact that the people are thereby 
robbed of their privileges, and have alleged that they have prac- 
tically no redress. They take little or no account of the great 
fact that legislatures are under the check of the veto of an execu- 
tive elected by the people, or of the still more saving fact of 
their protection under the Bill of Rights and their constitution, 
by which laws are measured and decided upon by the Supreme 
Court, also elected by the people. 

Since the agitation began in Illinois for a constitutional 
amendment to use " the referendum," as it is continually referred 
to, but always meaning the initiative power, the question has been 
many times asked : " Did not the legislature pass a referendum 
law? Has not Illinois the referendum already?" 

The Forty-second General Assembly passed the so-called 
"referendum act," providing for the submission of questions of 
public policy to the voters. It can best be described by quoting 
the act: 

An Act providing for an expression of opinion by electors on questions of 
Public Policy at a general or special election. 

Section i. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, repre- 
sented in General Assembly : That on a written petition, signed by 25 per cent, 
of the registered voters of any incorporated town, village, city, township, 
county, or school district; or 10 per cent, of the registered votes [voters] of 
the state, it shall be the duty of the proper election officers in each case to 
submit any question of public policy so petitioned for, to the electors of the 
incorporated town, village, city, township, county, school district, or state, as 
the case may be, at any general or special election named in the petition. 
Provided, such petition is filed with the proper election officers in each case 
not less than sixty days before the date of the election at which the question 
or questions petitioned for are to be submitted. Not more than three proposi- 
tions shall be submitted at the same election, and such proposition shall be 
submitted in the order of its filing. 

Sec. 2. Every question submitted to the electors shall be printed in plain, 
prominent type upon a separate ballot in form required by law, the same as a 
constitutional amendment or other public measure proposed to be voted upon 
by the people. 

Special attention is called to the fact that this permits ques- 



7l8 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 

tions only of public policy to be voted on, and only to ascertain 
the sentiment of the voters on such questions. The vote decides 
nothing. It leads to nothing- definite. It simply gives the people, 
or rather the persons who circulate the petition, some basis to 
claim, should the vote be affirmative, that the legislature is in 
duty bound to pass laws in accordance therewith. This is the 
case at the present time. The questions of state and local initia- 
tive were voted on at the election of November, 1902. They did 
not receive a majority of all the votes cast, but they received a 
large majority of the votes cast on the questions. This was the 
basis for the Referendum League of Illinois demanding that the 
legislature submit the question of a constitutional amendment to 
establish the popular initiative in this state. The legislature 
(1903) refused to do so. 

At the election in November, 1904, the Referendum League, 
under an alleged petition of 137,000 signatures, had submitted to 
the voters of the state three "direct" propositions, the first for 
direct primaries, the second for the "people's veto," the third for 
"home-rule in taxation." The first and second received a bare 
majority of all the votes cast in the state, the third a trifle less 
than a majority. All, however, had very large majorities of the 
votes cast on the questions, and their sponsors declare all to be 
the expressed will of the people, and that they should become 
laws. 

At the city election in Chicago in April, 1904, the question of 
immediate municipal ownership of the street railways was voted 
on, under the Public Policy Law. The affirmative vote was 
i2i,-957; negative, 50,807; the total vote cast being 236,000 out 
of a registration of 400,000. Yet on this vote the loud and per- 
sistent claim has since been made that the council should "obey 
the will of the people " and proceed to acquire the street-railway 
properties, in the face of the absolute impossibility of its doing 
so on account of complex litigation and financial incapacity. 

The Public Policy Law is useless and mischievous. It is 
deceptive in its objects and results, and used as a weapon by 
agitators. 

As for the referendum, it has been in use in every state in the 



POPULAR INITIA TIVE 7 1 9 

Union, with the exception of Delaware. It was established by 
the earliest English colonists. The first constitution in America 
submitted to the people for ratification was that submitted by the 
general court of Massachusetts Bay in 1778. It was rejected, 
but two years later the constitution in force in Massachusetts 
today was drawn by the convention and ratified by a two-thirds 
vote. That seemed to establish a precedent, New Hampshire 
approving of a constitution very soon after in the same manner; 
and since 1821, when the first constitution of New York was 
submitted to the popular vote, the practice has been universal. 

But this referendum does not grant any direct law-making 
privileges to the people; it simply gives the people the oppor- 
tunity of approving or rejecting certain kinds of laws enacted 
by their representatives. Right here is where the initiative rushes 
madly forward and proposes that the voters themselves have the 
power of legislating. As before explained — it will bear repeti- 
tion — it is proposed by constitutional amendment to make it 
possible for any voter, or collection of voters, large or small, to 
propose a state law ; to circulate a petition that such a law shall 
be submitted to the electors at the next election, and, by securing 
the signatures of a number equal to from 5 to 15 per cent, 
(as proposed at different times) of the votes cast at the last elec- 
tion to make it mandatory upon the election authorities to place 
the question upon the ballot. If a majority of the votes cast upon 
the question are affirmative, it becomes a law, and the action of 
the majority is final. This means that the governor shall. have 
no power of veto, such power being reserved to the majority vote. 
Should the law be in conflict with the constitution, still it could 
not be overruled by the Supreme Court ; " the people " — that is, 
the majority voting — are the masters, and from their decision 
there can be no appeal. Says Parsons, previously quoted : " He 
is the sovereign whose will is in control." 

Probably most of those who read this will exclaim : " But an 
amendment to the constitution, granting the simple right of 
initiative, does not repeal all other parts of the constitution, includ- 
ing those defining the judiciary and executive powers!" This 
can truly be said, but with the power of that initiative the voters 



/» 



/ 



720 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 

can annul any part of the constitution in the same manner that 
they enacted the first law. They would not need to go to the 
legislature and ask that a constitutional amendment be submitted 
to themselves. They would have the initiative ; and while it may 
be said that under existing conditions there is no likelihood that 
a majority of the voters of Illinois would ever take such action, 
it can not be asserted positively that they never would use the 
power in this way, if it were conferred upon them. 

It is only fair to the advocates of the initiative, the sincerity 
of some of whom cannot reasonably be doubted, to recognize their 
statements that they do not expect the people to use the power of 
the initiative except on rare occasions, their claim being that the 
mere fact of the voters possessing such power would stand as a 
menace against legislatures to enact vicious laws or refuse to 
enact wholesome laws. They place their faith in the intelligence, 
the calmness, and the righteousness of the people as always 
expressed by the major it}' voting. 

The Illinois Referendum League states in its booklet. The 
Referendum in a Nutshell: 

Under the referendum the passage of vicious laws by the legislative 
bodies will practically cease, because the "bribers will not pay for goods that 
cannot with certainty be delivered." If bribery is to cease, corrupt men will 
have no incentive to become members of legislative bodies ; and in consequence 
a better reputation will be given to law-makers, and a better grade of men, 
with long tenure of office, will soon be found in our general assembly and 
council chambers. Thus, instead of menacing the representative idea, the 
referendum in reality rescues it. The irresponsible power of our legislatures 

has a tendency to corrupt them The wisdom of the referendum has 

been sometimes questioned on the ground that it is not safe to intrust so 
much power in the hands of the people. The answer may be that, while legis- 
lative bodies may be, as they often have been, bribed by privilege-seeking 
interests, the mass of the people are too numerous to be bribed, even if that 
were morally possible The people as a whole are honest. 

That is the foundation-stone of the whole scheme — an abid- 
ing faith in the honesty and intelligence of a majority of the 
voters, which includes ability, not only to comprehend the most 
complicated questions, but to draft laws concerning them. The 
writer of a pamphlet entitled Political Egypt and the Way Out 
says: 



POPULAR INITIATIVE 721 

The credulous "fool staking his money upon the result of games played 
with loaded dice or marked cards has a better chance of success than 
reformers under the present system with its "fixed primaries" and so-called 
representative bodies subject to deadlock, to caucus manipulation, to boss 
dictation, to log-rolling, to trickery, and to evasion of issues endangermg 
party or the re-election of representatives. A governor with the veto, senate 
with power to shelve house bills, a lower house with ward heelers as members 
-here is a law-making machine capitally adapted to defeat or pervert the will 
of the people, and requiring a maximum of effort to secure a mmimum of 
result. To none of these evils is direct majority rule subject. 

It will be observed that several of the foregoing quotations 
refer to " the referendum." The reference, however, includes the 
initiative, and is coupled up with it wherever either is advocated. 
It is, in fact, the object of the most radical advocates ^of the 
vicious scheme to cloak it under the innocent title of "refer- 
endum." It is intended to deceive the people who do not take the 
trouble to examine the matter and discover the difference. The 
writer discovered from personal investigation that numbers who 
voted in 1902 (under the sentimental act) in favor of a constitu- 
tional amendment for the initiative and referendum did not com- 
prehend the scope of the scheme at all, but supposed it to be for a 
general compulsory referendum law. 

WHAT IS CLAIMED FOR IT 

Probably as good a synopsis as is possible of the manifold 
reasons urged for the adoption of the initiative (and the referen- 
dum) is given by Parsons in a chapter entitled " Twenty Reasons 
for the Referendum." It is peculiar to all writers in advocacy of 
the system to make positive statements as to what their panacea 
for political ills will do. They never express opinions; they 
make declarations. Professor Parsons says : 

It will perfect the representative system by eliminating serious mis- 
representation. \ 

Better men will be attracted to political life. \ 

It will simplify elections, separating the judgment on men from the 
judgment on issues, and disentangle issues so that each may be judged on its 
own individual merits. 

It will lessen the power of partisanship. 

It will elevate the press — voting will turn more on reason, and mud will 
be less in demand in the political market. 



722 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 

It will educate the people, intellectually and morally. 

It will stop class legislation and give labor her rights Farmers and 

artisans are not fairly represented in legislative bodies, but at the polls they 
will have their due preponderance and can pass such laws as they please. 

Direct legislation (i. e., the initiative) tends to stability, .... acting as 
a safety-valve for discontent. 

It favors wealth-diffusion by depriving the wealthy of their enormous 
overweight in government, and giving preponderance of legislative power to 
the common people whose interests are opposed to the vast aggregation of 
private capital. 

The income tax will have a chance, and the nationalization of railways and 
telegraphs. 

All private monopolies will become public property or have their horns 
sawed oif. 

Experience here and in Switzerland has proven the measureless value of 
direct legislation, and the utter futility of all objections raised against it. 

"It is worth while to examine in some detail the assertions so 
confidently made. It will shed much light upon the real objects 
which it is hoped may be gained through the direct legislation 
scheme, as well as indicate the character of the forces that are 
being marshaled in favor of it. 

Not much time need be spent on the claim that it will perfect 
the representative system. Logically, if the people are to make 
the laws, what difference does it make to them whether or not the 
legislatures are more perfect than now? Also the question may 
be asked here, as in connection with almost every other point 
involved : What reason is there to assume that, if the people are 
too incompetent or too negligent to select reliable representatives, 
they will be competent and watchful enough to frame and pass 
meritorious laws ? The claim that better men would be attracted 
to political life is an assumption entirely impossible of demonstra- 
tion or denial. But the next assertion, that the obligatory refer- 
endum and popular initiative system would simplify elections and 
separate the popular judgment on men from the judgment on 
issues, is a solecism so obvious that it almost creates admiration 
for the audacity of the utterance. The claim is more than absurd. 
Under any such scheme elections would be multiplied, and men 
and measures would be infinitely more confused than now. This 
has been proved by the mere effort to obtain such a law. It can- 



POPULAR INITIATIVE 723 

not be otherwise. The election officers of Chicago base their 
objections to the scheme largely upon the fact that the so-called 
questions of public policy cause much inconvenience and confu- 
sion, and add considerably to the expense of elections. The 
establishment of the initiative and obligatory referendum in the 
state would no doubt increase the expense of elections to a great 
degree. In order to get separate judgments on measures as dis- 
tinct from candidates, it would be necessary to submit measures 
at special elections. Do the proponents of the law consider this 
matter? A general election costs the tax-payers of Chicago very 
nearly $200,000. A judicial election costs them nearly $60,000. 
The cost of a general election in the state is well up toward half a 
million dollars. These amounts indicate only the public outlay. 
Take into consideration therewith the fact that every employee 
is entitled by law to two hours in which to vote — and employers 
know that he usually takes it — and some idea may be gained as 
to the expense incurred through loss of time. Besides, it is not 
contemplated that measures shall be submitted at special elections. 
It is likely that there would always be questions of so-called public 
policy on separate ballots at the general elections. The effect is, 
instead of simplifying matters, as is so absurdly claimed, to make 
of such matters a menace to candidates. The promoters of the 
measures seek to intimidate the candidates for office and to secure 
their pledge of support in case of their election. In many 
instances this is accompanied by threats. The result is that can- 
didates pledge themselves to support measures they do nof 
approve, and the more measures and questions submitted, the 
more of this kind of intimidation and stultification there must 
necessarily be. 

There is another feature — one of detail, but nevertheless 
important — which ought to have attention here. It is the elec- 
tion petition. The initiative and referendum are based upon 
petitions. A law that has been passed, if distasteful to a class, a 
party, or a faction, may be held up until a petition is circulated to 
get a number of signatures equal to 5 or 10 per cent, of the voters 
at the last election to force a submission bf it at the polls. Every 
experienced man knows about this kind of petitions. He knows 



724 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 

that in large part they are fraudulent and misleading. Every 
person who examined the alleged petitions of more than one 
hundred thousand signers, which the Referendum League pre- 
sented to the election commissioners of Chicago in 1902 and 1904, 
knows that there were lists of hundreds of names that were copied 
in the same hand ; that it contained the names of prominent per- 
sons long dead ; and that it bore other evidence of being largely 
spurious. It can be said, on the authority of the attorney for the 
commissioners, that if trouble and expense had been taken to 
examine the whole of either petition, it would have been thrown 
out; but under the law the burden of proof rests with the 
objectors, and where it is not positively proved that there is not 
the required number of genuine signatures, the petition is 
accepted ; that is, the known fraudulent signatures do not invali- 
date the others ; and as it is practically impossible to submit such 
positive proof where the petition is very large, it is seldom urged. 
In these cases no one took even the pains to count the signatures 
to determine positively how many there were. They were 
accepted on the representation of the league. 
I The manner usually employed in securing a petition discredits 

I the document. Copies of it are left at saloons, drug-stores, and 
I on street corners, and anyone may sign any name and any num- 
] ber of names he chooses. A popular petition is a mark for the 

■ ribald — a popular joke. The few states that have adopted the 
initiative in part have stricter requirements concerning petitions ; 

I but where an attempt is made to get genuine signatures it 

■ involves great inconvenience and annoyance. Copies are usually 
taken through factories, wholesale houses, and offices where large 
numbers of men are employed, creating loss of time and dis- 
traction from business. Some large concerns in this state, as the 
writer personally knows, absolutely refuse to allow a petition of 
any kind to be circulated among their men during hours of 
employment. A law that will necessitate making the circulation 
of petitions almost continuous is in that respect alone open to 
very grave censure. 

The probability of conflicting laws throughout the state, 
should the people of each subdivision have the power to enact 



POPULAR INITIATIVE 725 

statutes to answer their own peculiar wants or notions, is too 
obvious for discussion. Uniformity of laws would vanish. 

Next comes the claim that the law would lessen the power of 
partisanship. It may be allowed tliat the effect in many instances 
would be to weaken the barriers to some extent between the prin- 
cipal political parties, but it would be a great deal more likely to 
create factions that favor peculiar legislation. And the claim 
that it would stop class legislation, and give labor her rights, 
brings us to an interesting point. " Farmers and artisans are not 
fairly represented in legislative bodies," says the propagandist. 
What does this mean? Are farmers and artisans specially 
equipped for making and passing laws? Is it intended through 
the new mode to transfer the law-making powers to labor unions 
and agricultural alliances? Judging by the forces that are mak- 
ing for this system, it would seem that this is largely the object 
in view. The extracts already quoted, and the reasons advanced, 
warrant such conclusions. Indeed, they go farther: not only 
farmers and artisans, but the mass of common laborers, tens of 
thousands of whom have but recently been naturalized, who 
understand little or nothing of our governmental institutions, 
many of whom do not understand our language, are to be given 
an equal hand, not at passing laws, but at law-making. These 
elements provide in the initiative an instrument whereby it may 
be possible for them to effect such class legislation as they may 
desire, themselves being the legislators. 

They readily approve of the initiative when it is held out to 
them, as it is done by Professor Parsons, and practically by 
every one of its advocates whom I have consulted, that " it favors 
the diffusion of wealth by depriving the wealthy of their enor- 
mous overweight in government ; " that it will give the pre- 
ponderance of legislative power to the common people, whose 
interests are opposed to alleged industrial injustice and the vast 
^§"gregations of private capital; that it will bring about public 
ownership of railways and telegraphs; that "all private monop- 
olies will become public property, or have their horns sawed off." 

Plainly and directly speaking, this is promising to the labor 
element the establishment of socialism in its most radical form. 



726 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 

It foments and panders to class-hatred, discloses the aims of the 
radicals who are arrayed in favor of this pernicious innovation, 
and needs very few words to point a warning to those who believe 
in public order and honesty. In no instance have I misstated or 
exaggerated the utterances of those who speak for the initiative. 
It is easy to verify by conclusions with a volume of excerpts in 
exact line with those I have quoted. Here is another logical 
sweetmeat, also from Parsons, but quoted freely by other " refer- 
endum " writers : 

Direct legislation tends to stability, not only by the rejection of dangerous 
legislation, but by offering those who deem themselves oppressed an effective 
remedy by trial in the open court of public opinion — acting as a safety-valve 
for discontent. 

For whose discontent? For the proselytizers, agitators, and 

fomenters of social discord ? For the disciples of Emma Goldman 

and Herr Most? Let this not be considered a wild and unfair 

* inference. Here is one of the most conservative of the initiative 

\ advocates, a professor in one of the leading law colleges of the 

li country, who writes and publishes : 

11 It [the present order of things] is smothering discontent in hopelessness 

\ \ that breeds poison. Every anarchist I ever heard express himself had much of 

\ '.truth in what he said. It was his hopelessness of obtaining the justice he 

' Isought by peaceful means that made him advocate fire and bomb. An 

lanarchist is a man who feels intensely the pressure of wrong conditions, and 

Whose nature has more of recklessness than hope. Give us the referendum, 

land the path will be so plain that anarchy will soon go out of business. 

IWhich simply means, if it has any meaning, that if anarchists may 
Iframe and pass just such laws as they like, they will become 
Igentle and peaceful. 

I The assertion that an operative popular initiative, in general 
I use throughout the American states, would tend to stability — 
meaning, as must be understood, governmental efficiency and 
justice, and security of individual rights — was clearly falsified 
by Mr. Parsons himself before he had finished his paragraph. 
And it is disproved by a glance at the organizations, as well as the 
individuals, that are the most clamorous for the initiative. There 
is not a firebrand agitator in the land who is not demanding it. 
Every preacher of the gospel of might, who believes that the 



POPULAR INITIATIVE 727 

golden rule is founded on brute strength, demands it. It is a 
doctrine founded on might as expressed by numbers, taking no 
account of the rights of the minority. It appeals to men who 
abominate order and stability. 

Much the same may be said with exact truth of the publica- 
tions that are the most persistent advocates of the initiative. It 
is claimed that there are some 3,000 newspapers and periodicals 
in the United States that indorse the initiative and referendum. 
Nothing can be found to substantiate it; a great majority of them 
are merely for the referendum. It is significant, moreover, that 
the relatively few daily newspapers which are hot advocates of the 
initiative are, with rare exceptions, of the class afflicted with 
moral strabismus — notorious panders to morbid sensationalism 
and class-hatred. The explanation is obvious. 

It may truthfully be said that the principal arguments of all 
the writers in the country favoring the initiative are based upon 
the declarations quoted at the beginning of this chapter. With 
these assertions as texts, thousands of pamphlets and a con- 
siderable number of books have been produced in which it has 
been argued ad lihitum that the people have been steadily robbed 
of their rights; that congresses, legislatures, and councils have 
grown steadily more corrupt ; and that the only beneficent scheme 
of salvation for all political and social ills is to place the law- 
making power in the hands of the populace and trust entirely to 
the wisdom of the majority. 

Throughout the literature of the radical initiative protago- 
nists runs this raucous song and refrain: "Laws are passed that 
the people don't want, and laws they do want are not passed. 
Legislatures cannot be trusted, for they are creatures of corrupt 
agencies. Only the initiative can destroy the private monopoly 
of legislative power and establish public ownership of the gov- 
ernment ! " This might be credited to any one of them, but it is 
enough to cite Parsons, Direct Legislation, p. 22. 

Nothing could be more demagogical. There is no evidence 
to bear out the wail. There are, in absolute fact, very few 
meretricious laws in force in any of the states. Bad laws are 
sometimes passed, but they seldom stand long. The writer has 



728 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 

questioned jurists and lawyers of ripe experience, and there is no 
exception to the opinion that the great mass of laws are designed 
for, and in the main subserve, a good purpose. There are not a 
few unnecessary laws, but for the most part they are harmless. 
A law that meets public condemnation is soon repealed. " Freak 
legislation" is really the rare exception, and it is usually the 
result of class or factional clamor, at the mercy of which, under 
the initiative, it is proposed to place the supreme power of 
legislation. 

This propagandism began in this country about a dozen years 
ago, and the propagandists claim to have made considerable head- 
way, pointing to the fact that constitutional amendments grant- 
ing the initiative have been voted in four states ; namely, Utah, 
Missouri, South Dakota, and Oregon; and that the obligatory 
referendum requiring certain kinds of laws, usually relating to 
franchises, passed by the legislatures to be held in abeyance for a 
certain time before becoming operative, during which time, upon 
the petition of a small percentage of the voters, they must be sub- 
mitted to the popular vote, has been adopted by Denver, Omaha, 
Los Angeles, and a number of other western cities. Their suc- 
cess appears to lie almost wholly with the referendum. Wherever 
the initiative has been imbedded in state constitutions, it has been 
in the way of permitting it to be employed locally, or on questions 
of franchises. Its adoption to this extent in South Dakota was in 
1898; in Utah, in 1900; in Oregon, in 1902; in Missouri, in 
1904. 

It has been claimed that in the first three states named it has 
prevented bribery and bad legislation, on the ground that they 
have had less of these evils than formerly. But certain other 
states, without the initiative, also have had less; so nothing is 
proved for the system. In 1904 a former state senator of Oregon 
wrote : " The first effect of the referendum in Oregon is the com- 
parative absence of charges of corruption and partisanship. We 
credit a good deal of this to the direct-legislation amendment." 
A few weeks after this was written the greatest political scandal 
in the history of the state was developed, a representative and 
United States senator being indicted for fraud. Therefore, all 



POPULAR INITIATIVE 729 

claims and representations as to what benefits and reforms the 
popular initiative would work in this country are entirely specu- 
lative, except as it may be judged by the result of the law since it 
was generally adopted in Switzerland some fifteen years ago. In 
fact, this is practically admitted by the writer of Political Egypt, 
and the Way Out, who says : 

How do we know that direct legislation will do what is claimed for it? 
By what it has done in Switzerland, once corrupt, but today the model 
republic of the Old World. The only country in Europe from which one 
does not hear continual stories of strikes, panics, and lockouts, and in which 
the lobby has been destroyed and men are re-elected to office term after term 
regardless of their party because of their being able men. 

This was also asserted in substance by J. W. Sullivan, who was 
one of the first Americans to make an examination of the Swiss 
referendum and initiative, and who has been one of the most 
uncompromising advocates of it. Mr. Eltweed Pomeroy, presi- 
dent of the National Direct Legislation League, who edits a 
periodical, published in Philadelphia, devoted to the subject, bases 
most of his arguments upon assertions of the beneficent results in 
the various Swiss cantons, and, like its other advocates, jumps 
directly to the conclusion that it is equally applicable in the 
United States, and would work even greater wonders here. 

Before examining into the question of the Swiss initiative, 
some attention should be given to the high authorities among 
American statesmen, politicians, and literary men who are 
audaciously quoted by the writers on the popular initiative as 
present champions or past advocates of it. Through quotation- 
jugglery and far-fetched inference, they implicate Thomas 
Jefferson, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, 
and many others of less note ; but upon clearer examination it is 
found that there is very little in their writings to warrant the 
assumption that they ever did or ever would subscribe to the 
system that strikes at the principle of representative government. 
Jefferson, as everyone knows, was a champion of democracy, but 
it is equally as well known that he set limits upon democracy, and 
that, while he was opposed to some principles of the national 
constitution, he was nevertheless a strong believer in constitu- 
tional guarantees. To quote from The Popular Initiative, by 



730 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 

O. M. Barnes, one of the few writers who have taken the trouble 
to expose the danger of the initiative : 

No one ever held more firmly than Jefferson to the doctrine that all 
governments must be limited to the exercise of just powers; and when, 
further on, he denounced acts of usurpation and abuse as evincing a purpose 
to employ " absolute despotism," he did not limit his denunciation to the acts 
of kings. In his messages and writings he keeps before us the superiority of a 
limited over an absolute government. ■ 

And again : 

The citing of the Declaration of Independence in support of this plan 
[the initiative], as was done, is a great perversion of that instrument and 
injurious to JefJerson's fame. Because he wrote that governments derive 
their just powers from the consent of the governed, it by no means follows 
that a measure is just or within the scope of rightful power, because a majority 
has sanctioned it. The Declaration says that all men " are endowed by their 
Creator with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness ; that, to secure these rights, governments are insti- 
tuted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the gov- 
erned." No power unjust by nature can be transformed into a just power by 
the consent of a majority. 

The claim that Jackson was a friend of the popular initiative 
is based, so far as appears in the testimony, upon this passage in 
one of his inaugural addresses : " So far as the people can, with 
convenience, speak, it is safer for them to express their own will." 
What Andrew Jackson would say, were he alive now to speak on 
the proposition of government by irresponsible petitioning and 
popular vote, without regard to legislatures or supreme courtSj 
may be left to the imagination. 

With equal confidence these propagandists elect Abraham 
Lincoln as one of their own on the strength of the following 
quotations from his utterances : " Allow all the governed an 
equal voice in the government; " " Governments of the people, by 
the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth." 
It is also pointed out that Lincoln, before the Civil War had been 
long in progress, made a proposition to the Confederate leaders 
to submit the differences between the North and South to the 
popular vote of all the states — northern and southern — with the 
agreement to abide by the result as indicated by a majority. In 
this manner he hoped to put an end to the war. Of course, the 



POPULAR INITIATIVE 731 

offer was declined, as the Confederates well knew that the more 
populous North would outvote them. It is upon such eviderce as 
this that the great emancipator is now made a witness to the 
efficacy of the initiative plan. 

In a similar manner the historian W. E. H. Lecky and Lord 
Salisbury, in England, are made to favor the initiative, the latter 
on the strength of the utterance: 

I believe that nothing could oppose a bulwark to popular passion except 
an arrangement for deliberate and careful reference of any matter in dispute 
to the votes of the people, like the arrangements existing in the United States 
and Switzerland. 

From Mr. Lecky we are given the following as evidence : 

The referendum would have the immense advantage of disentangling 
issues, separating one great question from the many minor questions with 
which it may be mixed. Confused or blended issues are among the greatest 

political dangers of our time The experience of Switzerland and 

America shows that wben the referendum lakes root in a country it takes 
political questions to an immense degree out of ihe hands of the wire pullers, 
and makes it possible to decide them mainly, though perhaps not wholly, on 
their merits, without producing a change of government or part predominance. 

It will be seen from the above that Mr. Lecky in no way com- 
mitted himself even to favoring the obligatory referendum, much 
less the popular initiative, and anyone who has read his work, 
Democracy and Liberty, well knows that he shows positive 
antagonism to anything like an unchecked democracy. 

It must be admitted, however, that the pro-initiative writers 
quote from a large number of people more authoritatively. One 
of these is Mr. William Dean Howells ; another is Rev. Lyman 
Abbott ; still another, Mr. John Wanamaker ; all of whom are on 
record unqualifiedly in favor of the direct-legislative scheme. 
There are also a number of reputable lawyers and educators com- 
mitted to the experiment, whose motives the writer has not the 
least desire to impugn ; and a long list of others, concerning some 
of whom, as safe authorities on political and social problems, 
there is likely always to be some divergence of opinion. Among 
such may be mentioned the late ex-Governor St. John, of Kansas ; 
the late Governor Pingree, of Michigan; the late Edward 
Bellamy; ex-Senator Pettigrew; Professor George Gunton; 



732 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 

Hon. William J. Bryan ; Hon. George F. Williams ; Rev. B. Fay 
Mills (evangelist); Professor George D. Herron; ex-Governor 
Thomas, of Colorado; Professor E. W. Bemis; Hon. John G. 
Woolley; Hon. Sam M. Jones, of Toledo; Eugene V. Debs; 
Miss Margaret Haley; etc. 

There still remains the stock claim that experience here and 
in Switzerland has proved the measureless value of direct legis- 
lation and the utter futility of all objections raised against it. 
This constant reference to Switzerland imposes the necessity of 
examining carefully in that direction. 

THE INITIATIVE IN SWITZERLAND TRUTHS AND UNTRUTHS 

CONCERNING IT 

The authorities who have written most fervently upon the 
beneficent effects of the initiative — usually speaking of it as 
"the referendum" — in Switzerland are W. D. McCracken; 
Boyd Winchester, ex-United States minister to Switzerland; 
Francis O. Adams, ex-minister from Great Britain there; J. W. 
Sullivan; and Professor Vincent, of Johns Hopkins University. 
All of these writers appear to have entered upon their task with a 
feeling of joy at having discovered a scheme of political redemp- 
tion for a fallen nation. Quoting them with exultation and 
approval follows Professor Parsons, who expresses his feelings 
thus: 

Fifty j^ears ago Switzerland was more under the heels of class-rule than 
we are today; political turmoil, rioting, civil war, monopoly, aristocracy, and 
oppression — this was the history of a large portion of the Swiss until within 
a few decades. Today the country is the freest and most peaceful in the 
world. What has wrought the change? Simply union and the referendum. 

Following this, the writer enters upon a glowing description 
of the many reforms that have been brought about in Switzerland, 
and while having given, in answer to his leading question, first 
credit to the union and second to " the referendum," he practically 
ignores the union thereafter, and attributes the whole political 
regeneration of the European republic to the referendum and the 
initiative. This may almost be said, without injustice, of the 
writings on the subject of the other authors mentioned. They 
seem to have undertaken more the laudation of the initiative than 



POPULAR INITIATIVE 733 

to credit other agencies, which, to the unbiased examiners, appear 
to have had much to do with the results. Not one of them has 
employed the analytical method. 

In a work of high standing among scholars, Governments and 
Parties in Continental Europe, by A. Lawrence Lowell, the his- 
tory and working of the initiative and referendum in Switzerland 
are given (in marked contrast to those quoted above) with every 
evidence of impartial and close knowledge of the subject. Mr. 
Lowell shows that the adoption of the law was not so much the 
work of statesmanship as the result of accidental and peculiar 
national conditions. It was really the work of contending fac- 
tions, some religious, others political or social. There was in 
former years lacking in the confederation a native representative 
system. This was due to the absence of a royal power, which was 
the great unifying force during the Middle Ages. Switzerland 
did not become sufficiently consolidated to have a central legis- 
lature, and no one of the separate states that made up the con- 
federation was large enough by itself to need a representative 
system. 

The confederation being a mere league of independent states, the delegates 
to its diet acted like ambassadors, and .... were never given power to agree 

to f^nal settlement of matters of importance The old federal referendum 

meant, therefore, the right of the members of the confederation to reserve 
questions for their own determination. 

In fact, the Swiss had no representative government until 
about the end of the eighteenth century. Another important fact 
should also be given due consideration. Switzerland was without 
the protection of the executive veto against unscrupulous or 
unwise legislation, and as a rule had no judicial process for setting 
aside unconstitutional laws. Such lack of restraint on the legis- 
latures was no doubt an important factor favoring the adoption 
of the obligatory referendum, and afterward the initiative ; yet it 
is hardly referred to by those who quote that country as a model 
for America to imitate. This is an example of the one-sided and 
partisan method employed by the pro-initiative writers. 

Mr. Lowell declares that the modem referendum, as applied 
in Switzerland, is based on the theories of popular rights, derived 



734 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 

mainly from the teachings of Rousseau, who in the Contrat social 
decried representative government and advised that laws be 
enacted directly by the people. 

Owing largely to her geographical situation, being a border- 
land of most other nationalities of Europe, Switzerland had her 
troubles growing out of racial difficulties. This accentuated the 
warring of factions. Their cantonal disaffections and contentions 
began with their history. The constitution which the first 
Napoleon imposed on the republic, and the readjustment of politi- 
cal conditions after the Napoleonic wars, created further dissen- 
sions. A league of seven cantons threatened to send no more 
commissioners to the diet, but it was finally dissolved by federal 
authority. In 1832 liberal cantonal reforms were introduced — 
without any aid of the initiative — and the federal constitution 
was revised in that year. The revision was voted down by fac- 
tions — and it was a good revision, too — just as factions there 
are frequently voting down good laws today. Some of the con- 
tentious parties began to see in Rousseau's teachings of popular 
sovereignty a chance for advantage. It became a popular doc- 
trine. Each faction, religious or political, believed it could by 
means of the initiative secure the enactment of its own measure 
into a law in spite of the legislature. According to the initiative 
authorities, all these parties were actuated by motives of pure 
patriotism and disgust with legislative corruption. Such talk is 
rubbish. On the authority of historians of high standing, it was 
simply a scheme employed for party advantage. At any rate, in 
1863 the first cantonal initiative law was passed, and within the 
next half-dozen years six of the leading cantons followed the 
example. At the present time all of the twenty-two cantons of 
the federation have the obligatory referendum, and seventeen the 
popular initiative. The confederation adopted the referendum in 
1874 as a constitutional measure, and in 1891 an amendment was 
voted providing for the initiative "when 50,000 voters demand 
the enactment, abolition, or alteration of special articles of the 
constitution." When a demand is made that a law passed by the 
legislature shall be laid before the people for acceptance or rejec- 



POPULAR INITIATIVE 735 

tion, it requires a petition of 30,000 voters, or a demand of eight 
of the cantons. 

Among the many reforms that have been effected in the 
repubhc during the last half-century, as claimed by the initiative 
advocates, are the public ownership of the liquor business, the 
manufacture of distilled liquors being a national monopoly ; the 
institution of state life-insurance; a greatly improved factory act; 
a law for local option as to capital punishment — by states; a law 
forbidding compulsory vaccination ; a law providing for religious 
instruction in schools; the national ownership of railways, tele- 
graphs, and telephones; etc. It is also claimed that there has 
been no civil war during these years. 

As to these laws, we have in America state option as to 
capital punishment, the same as in Switzerland ; we have in most 
states adequate factory laws ; and, as to the liquor business, how 
many people in America are anxious for our national government 
to engage in the manufacture and sale of distilled liquors as a 
monopoly? How many desire the repeal of our compulsory vac- 
cination law? Is it probable that a majority of the voters of the 
nation desire the national ownership of railways, telegraphs, and 
telephones ? There is, to be sure, loud agitation for them in cer- 
tain industrial centers, and it is in these same centers where the 
movement for the popular initiative is most active. 

Admitting that most of these measures, as well as many 
others adopted during the last half or three-quarters of a century 
in Switzerland, are real reforms, it does not appear that all have 
been brought about through the agency of the initiative, and it 
seems preposterous to suppose that no advance would have been 
made in the republic without the initiative. There were political 
turmoil and much corruption of legislatures there a half-century 
ago. There is comparative honesty in their legislative councils 
now. But are the reforms instituted in Switzerland during these 
years of greater importance or beneficence than those effected in 
England during the same time by reform measures without the 
initiative? Political corruption was rife in France under the last 
empire ; it is generally recognized that there is less of it now, and 
greater national security ; but they have had no popular initiative. 



736 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 

At a time soon after the Civil War our own national government 
seemed to be a hotbed of political and financial corruption; that 
has not been the case for many years; yet it did not require the 
initiative to correct the evil. 

Perhaps no country in the world has made greater advance, 
both actual and relative, during the last quarter of a century than 
Mexico. From being rent and impoverished by revolution, con- 
stantly disturbed by factional agitation, corrupted by thieving 
officials, with little security of life or property, it has now excel- 
lent laws and wise administration of them, and a government 
that guarantees justice, and promotes social and industrial 
progress. And this has been accomplished under a rule the very 
antithesis of that obtaining in Switzerland, 

That the initiative and referendum have not been the sublime 
successes in Switzerland that the pro-referendum writers have 
stated can be declared on the best authority. Albert Bushnell 
Hart, professor of history in Harvard University, and a well- 
known political and economic writer, made an extensive examina- 
tion of their workings a few years ago, and professed himself 
astonished at the little good that had really resulted from them. 
He declares that under them vicious measures are continually 
being proposed, and that in many instances measures in accord 
with the most advanced thought that were passed by the legis- 
lature have been taken from it and voted down. He says that the 
result in Switzerland has not warranted the declaration made in 
this country that it will bring out the more intelligent class of 
voters. 

But we do not have to depend upon Mr. Hart's or any other 
American's evidence. Leading Swiss statesmen and writers are 
ample authority. The credit, if there be any credit, of instituting 
the referendum for ordinary laws passed by legislatures belongs 
entirely to Switzerland. The popular veto there requires a 
majority of all the votes cast, whereas a new measure proposed 
by the popular initiative requires only a majority of the votes 
cast on the question to become a law. Mark the distinction. 
Both the popular initiative and the obligatory referendum were 
used spasmodically, and frequently with odd results, the first 



POPULAR INITIATIVE 7Z7 

years after they were adopted. In 1870 the manufacturing can- 
ton of Zurich voted down a law, which had been passed by the 
assembly, limiting the working-time of factory employees to 
twelve hours a day, designated mainly to protect the women 
operatives, a measure also forbidding the employment of children 
of school years. The law was opposed by the workingmen, heads 
of families, who feared that under it the earnings of their wives 
and children might be somewhat decreased. This is one instance 
of the benign, altruistic spirit controlling a democracy. Fre- 
quently within the past few years wholesome factory and educa- 
tional laws have been voted down under the Swiss referendum. 
On the authority of Charles Borgeaud, a statesman and writer of 
high authority, the compulsory vaccination laws passed in the 
cantons of Zurich and Bern were also vetoed by the operation of 
the referendum. In Zurich, under the popular initiative, a law 
providing for capital punishment for the crime of murder was 
enacted, and almost immediately the minority that had opposed 
it circulated a petition, and by working up the popular feeling to 
a high pitch the law was voted down. This illustrates exactly 
how popular excitement may be kept alive by the scheme of peti- 
tions and public agitation, and how minorities may be changed 
into majorities by working upon popular sentiment. 

Borgeaud also relates that some queer legislation has been 
worked into the national constitution by means of the initiative. 
One relates to the manner of slaughtering beef cattle. The agita- 
tion that resulted in this absurd piece of legislation in a constitu- 
tion grew out of prejudice against the Jews and their peculiar 
method of butchering. It is one of the laws bom purely of spite 
and prejudice, and is merely an index which shows that the state 
constitutions of America would soon be burdened with monstrous 
class legislation, should class-hatred and discontent ever succeed 
in making such a method of legislation supersede the general 
assemblies. 

It may be said that vicious legislation enacted in that manner 
would be checked by rulings of the courts. But it must be remem- 
bered that the whole power of the initiative is based upon the 
declaration that an affirmative vote on any measure is final; that 



738 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 

it is not to be revoked either by the legislature or by the supreme 
court; and should the supreme court assume to exercise such 
superior authority, it can be disposed of in the same manner as 
that by which the law it seeks to annul was enacted. Supreme 
courts would very soon lose their power to pass upon the constitu- 
tionality of any and all legislation. It would become a mere 
judicial figurehead; one of the creatures of the popular law- 
making power, as the initiative proponents boldly assert, and 
subject constantly to their interference and intimidation. 

Another eminent Swiss authority, Numa Droz, a statesman 
and economic writer of reputation among economists, and an 
ex-president of the republic, after giving a dispassionate history 
of the initiative and referendum and their workings in his coun- 
try, with apparent inclination everywhere to favor the referendum, 
speaks in most doubtful terms concerning the initiative. He finds 
that it furnishes a basis for demagogism, and encourages hot- 
heads and agitators whose business it seems to be to sow dis- 
content. Mr. Droz declares that the Swiss are uneasy under the 
popular initiative. In his own words : 

A democracy should rest on a secure foundation, and the power of the 
initiative puts it in question at every moment. Self-appointed committees and 
demagogues continually work for disintegration and destruction. 

Of course, it will be asserted at once that it has not worked 
disintegration and destruction in Switzerland; which is true; 
but it has only been in operation as a national institution a few 
years, and it is impossible to say that nothing worse will ever 
come from it. The mere fact that only seventeen out of the 
twenty-two cantons have adopted the initiative is proof conclusive 
that the others have been and still are in doubt and fear of it. 
Mr. Lowell repeatedly points out that the weakness of the institu- 
tion lies in the inability of the people to comprehend proposed 
laws. The idea of the right of everybody to make laws is 
attractive, but it has not proved of value. 

I quote again from Borgeaud : 

A law that may become part of the constitution, stand as a model for 
future legislation, which judges will have to apply and jurists to expound 
.... may be drawn up behind closed doors or around the council board of 
some committee, which is then as important as the government. 



POPULAR INITIATIVE 739 

Again I quote from Droz : 

It is now generally agreed that the popular initiative might at any time 
place the country m a very considerable danger. From the moment that the 
representatives of the people have no more to say in the matter than irre- 
sponsible committees drawing up articles in a bar-parlor, it is clear that the 
limits of democracy have been passed and that the reign of demagogy has 

begun. The way is opened A democracy ought to rest on a solid 

basis ; it is now put in peril every moment. 

Says the English writer, L. Tomn : 

By the initiative they [the people] are placed at the mercy of the chance 
majority. The way is open to both capricious legislation and clumsy legis- 
lation. 

And we do not have to look far for the authoritative opinion that 
this would apply more forcibly in America than in Switzerland. 
Another Swiss economist, quoted by the Referendum League, 
and widely recognized as a reliable authority, is Simon Deploige. 
His review of the workings of the laws under question in Switzer- 
land is comprehensive and clearly unbiased. His conclusions as 
to the initiative are deliberate and unequivocal : 

Direct legislation is incompatible with the representative system In 

my opinion, the experience of the cantons which enjoy the compulsory refer- 
endum are far from conclusive It is a little ridiculous to talk of legis- 
lation by the people, when more than half the citizens refuse to exercise their 

legislative rights The acceptance or rejection of laws which are at all 

complicated cannot be ascribed to either the good sense or the ignorance of the 
people, for the mass of the people has no opportunity of estimating the value 
of these laws. 

It is needless to multiply quotations to show that the thought 
on this matter in Switzerland is not all one way, and that the 
experiments made with the initiative and compulsory referendum 
have not been universally beneficial. Enough has been given to 
steady the thoughts of any American who may be inclined to 
jump at quick conclusions. The sweeping assertions of the ini- 
tiative propagandists regarding Switzerland are here discredited, 
and even if the law had been much more successful in that coun- 
try than it has been, hardly anything would be proved to us. 
Most of the desirable things acquired by it there we already have 
in America. It is not admitted, and will not be, that government 
ownership of railways, telegraphs, etc., is really wanted here. 



740 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 

We do not want the government to monopolize the whisky busi- 
ness. Switzerland is no criterion for America in this matter. 

In Switzerland the cantons vote state churches, and support 
them from the public treasuries. Is that an example for the 
American states to follow ? Says Mr. Lowell : 

In a community as intricate as ours, legislation is a very intricate matter, 
and requires a great deal of careful study. This is far less true of Switzerland. 
.... The initiative has not been a success even in Switzerland, and there is 
no reason to expect it would work any better elsewhere. 

A REVOLUTIONARY MEASURE 
Should the popular initiative with the referendum become the mode of 
making laws, the same power will control the constitution that passes the laws. 
That power can and will be disposed to remove all constitutional barriers to 
the law it favors. (O. M. Barnes.) 

To speak of the initiative as a revolutionary scheme is not an 
extravagance of language. It is not only revolutionary in its 
possibilities, but in its intent. A representative government with 
the power of veto in the executive cannot exist in a state where 
the popular initiative is operative. To say, as some members of 
the Illinois Referendum League have said, that it is not intended 
to use the power to the full extent, is an idle answer. The ele- 
ments that are giving the Referendum League its greatest support 
demand the power only to use it. In the councils of the Chicago 
Federation of Labor this has been more than once declared. 
One of the officials of that organization asserted that under the 
initiative and referendum the Teachers' Federation of Chicago, 
having joined the Federation of Labor, would have power enough 
to depose the present board of education of that city and to elect 
a board of its own choosing, meaning thereby that it would elect 
a board subservient to itself. Mr. O. M. Barnes reminds us that 
a resolution was presented in a labor congress at Cincinnati not 
long ago, and given prolonged discussion, demanding 
such amendment to the constitution of the United States, and the constitutions 
of the several states thereof, as will deprive the aforesaid supreme courts of 
power to set aside laws duly enacted by the legally chosen representatives of 
the people. 

The Michigan Law Review states the case thus : 

Direct legislation proposes this : Whenever any law is pronounced uncon- 



POPULAR INITIATIVE 74 1 

stitutional, by that fact, without any further action, it becomes imperative to 
refer the law in question to a vote of the people. The decision of the people 
settles at once, and without further dispute, the constitutionality of the law. 

There is pending in Congress a bill for a compulsory eight- 
hour law, and the American Federation of Labor, which is spon- 
sor for it, insists that it shall prohibit workingmen from working 
more than eight hours a day, as well as prohibit employers from 
requiring them to do so. The same bill, practically, was before 
the Fifty-seventh Congress, and was favorably reported by the 
Senate committee. But an attempt to forbid by law one man to 
work for another more than a certain number of hours a day, 
regardless of circumstances, and to punish him for so doing, is 
rightly characterized as an act of tyranny, and is simply one 
more forcible illustration of what would be attempted under the 
initiative. 

Whether or not such dangerous power would ever be used to 
the extent that our constitution and bill of rights would be 
annulled is not the question for discussion. The danger of 
bestowing such power is the thing to be considered. Usurpation 
of power is just as possible by a democracy. as by a tyrant, and 
history is replete with testimony that it has been used in just as 
tyrannical a manner. 

When measures imposing burdens and taking away rights are to be passed 
into laws by this means, what will hinder the majority from so imposing the 
burdens that they will fall on other shoulders than their own, and so dis- 
tributing the blessing that they will fall upon themselves? 

A despotism of democracy, with its ignorance, brutality, and 
class-hatred, as continually exhibited in industrial turmoils, is the 
worst kind of despotism. Says Lecky : 

A tendency to democracy does not mean a tendency to parliamentary gov- 
ernment, or even a tendency toward greater liberty. On the contrary, democ- 
racy may often prove the direct opposite of liberty. A despotism resting on a 
plebiscite is quite as natural a form of democracy as a republic, and some of 
the strongest democratic tendencies are directly adverse to liberty. Equality 
is the idol of democracy, but with the infinitely various capacities and energies 
of men, this can only be attained by a constant, energetic, stringent repression 
of their natural development. 

No Student or thinker will for a moment deny that delibera- 



742 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 

tions of representative assemblies and the veto power of the 
executive have from the birth of this government proved such 
" a constant, systematic, stringent repression," and have prevented 
the whims and follies of many a movement, under popular excite- 
ment or discontent, from burdening statutes with meretricious 
laws. There is practically no deliberation in popular legislation. 
Voters learn something of candidates, of their moral and intel- 
lectual fitness. They learn little about measures. Some time ago, 
when it was proposed in Chicago to refund several millions of 
current or floating municipal debt by the issue of bonds, the ques- 
tion was submitted to the voters. The only possible result of the 
plan was to save the city several thousand dollars a year in a 
reduced rate of interest. Yet more than 49,000 voters cast their 
ballot against the proposition. Does anyone suppose they under- 
stood what they were voting against? The Referendum League 
of Illinois flaunted the 428,000 votes cast in 1902 (out of a total 
vote of 860,000) under the sentimental-referendum act for an 
initiative amendment as the solemn mandate of " the people." Py 
inquiry it was ascertained that many who cast their ballot for the 
initiative and referendum did so because the tip had gone out 
from "the union" to vote for it, and that they had very little 
idea what it meant. As for that matter, I learned that others 
who voted for the two propositions did so believing that it was 
merely the referendum, and had no knowledge concerning the 
initiative feature; and some of these were men of affairs and 
education, too. It is not the members of labor unions alone who 
fail to grasp the substance of public measures. Neither they nor 
the clerks, nor the average business man, can reasonably be 
expected to do it under the complex conditions now existing. It 
is shown in Mr. Deploige's assertion, previously quoted, that the 
acceptance or rejection of laws which are at all complicated can- 
not be ascribed to either the good sense or the ignorance of the 
people, for the mass has no opportunity for estimating the value 
of them. If this is true of Switzerland — and experience has 
demonstrated its truth — how much more forcibly does it apply 
to Illinois, where the laws proposed outnumber those of Switzer- 
land twenty to one ! 



POPULAR INITIATIVE 743 

Inasmuch as organized labor is a unit for direct legislation in 
this country, justifying its faith largely on the operation of the 
system in conducting the affairs of trades unions, it is desired to 
address to its members some interesting evidence for their especial 
consideration. What the actual results of the employment of the 
initiative in the conduct of labor organizations in America have 
been will not be discussed, for, so far as the writer knows, no 
history of such experiments has been written. But a complete, 
authoritative history of its use by similar bodies in England — the 
birth-land of modern trades-unionism — has been written. It is 
contained in the first two chapters of Industrial Democracy, by 
S. and M. Webb, authors also of A History of Trades Unions, 
The Eight-Hour Day, etc. There are in England no deeper stu- 
dents nor abler and more authoritative writers, on the subjects 
named. Their researches have been long and laborious, and this, 
together with their intimate personal association with industrial 
affairs, has made their works standards wherever they are known. 

It is shown that in the early period of unionism in England it 
was the custom to submit questions, not only of policy, but of 
administration as well^ to "the voices," that is, to the viva voce 
vote of the assembled members. This was adapted only to small 
organizations and simple purposes. 

As the delegate system came to be established, the delegate, or committee 
man, was regarded merely as a vehicle by which the voices could be conveyed. 
His task required no special qualification beyond intelligence to comprehend 
his instructions and a spirit of obedience in carrying them out. 

For many years the unions labored under this ineffective 
policy — a policy which became less effective as the unions 
expanded, because, as our authors observe, 

the ordinary trade-unionist, unversed in the technicalities of administration, is 
unable to judge by what particular expedient his grievance can best be 
remedied. The ordinary citizen thinks of nothing but clear issues on broad 
lines. The representative, on the other hand, finds himself constantly called 
upon to choose between the nicely balanced expediences of compromise neces- 
sitated by the complicated facts of practical life. 

To conduct the business of a great trade union requires execu- 
tive ability. For more than a hundred years this fact was hardly 
recognized by the unionists. They held that an average one of 



744 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 

their number could go from the shop to the office of administra- 
tion and meet all requirements. Even if one happened to fulfil 
expectations, he was not given much of a chance, for rotation in 
office was insisted upon. " In the local trade clubs of the 
eighteenth century democracy appeared in its simplest forms." 
And the authors add : 

It is significant to notice how slowly, reluctantly, and incompletely the 
trade-unionists incorporated in their constitutions what is often regarded as 
the specifically Anglo-Saxon form of democracy, the elective representative 
assembly. 

After many years of ineffective struggle, the delegate meeting 
became in fact superseded by the referendum, in an attempt to 
adapt the scheme of popular control to large and increasing 
bodies, just as the advocates of the initiative in America today 
are seeking to apply, through its operation, the principle of town- 
meeting government to great cities and populous states. So long 
as unlettered men, inexperienced in business, strove to combine 
administrative efficiency with popular control, the struggle of 
unionism against trained, highly skilled opposition was hopeless. 
There was a development through decades out of the theory that 
" the voices " of the whole body should govern, and that each and 
every member should take an equal and identical share in the 
common project, into a logical administrative system. It is the 
clear and reliable history of the constitutional development in 
trade-union democracy. 

Those who believe that a true democracy implies a direct decision by 
the mass of the people of every question as it arises will find this ideal without 
check or limit in the history of the large trade unions [in England] between 
1834 and 1870. 

The official circular was the medium of balloting, and every issue 
was filled with crude and often inconsistent projects to be voted 
on. Every member was an executive. 

The system worked disastrously, most so in connection with 
the rates of distribution and benefits. 

The disadvantages of a free use of the referendum (and initiative) became 
obvious to thoughtful trade-unionists, and the practical abandonment of the 
initiative ensued. 



POPULAR INITIATIVE 745 

There was too much changing of rules — too much promiscuous 
and ill-advised law-making. Say the authors : 

We see that half a century of practical experience with the initiative and 
referendum has led, not to its extension, but to an ever stricter limitation of 
its application. The attempt to secure the participation of every member in 
the management of his society was found to lead to instability in legislation, 
dangerous unsoundness of finance, and general weakness of administration. 
(Vol. I, p. 26.) 

Yet these members were acting only upon questions connected 
with their organizations, about which they may be presumed to 
have known a good deal. Is it not reasonable to inquire what 
room there is to expect the multitude, either in England or 
America, to act more coherently or intelligently on complicated 
public questions that do not so nearly concern it. As to the 
experience cited there is no guesswork : 

If, therefore, democracy means that " everything which concerns all 
should be decided by all," and that each citizen should enjoy an equal share 
in the government, trade-union history indicates clearly its inevitable result. 
Government by such contrivances [mass-meeting, referendum, initiative] leads 
straight either to inefficiency and disintegration, or to the uncontrolled domina- 
tion of a personal dictator or an expert bureaucracy. Dimly and almost 
unconsciously this conclusion has after a whole century of experiment forced 
itself upon the most advanced trades. The old theory of democracy is still 
an article of faith, and constantly comes to the front when any organization 
has to be formed for brand-new purposes. The use of the initiative and 
referendum has been tacitly given up in all complicated issues. 

There is much in these conclusions for every radical advocate 
of direct popular control : 

In the democratic state, as in the trade union, the eventful judgment of 

the people is pronounced, not upon projects, but upon results All that 

we have said as to the logical futility of the referendum, and as to the neces- 
sity of the representative, therefore, applies even more strongly to democratic 
states than to trades unions. For what is the lesson to be learned from trade- 
union history? The referendum, introduced for the express purpose of secur- 
ing popular consent, has in almost all cases failed to accomplish its object. 
The failure is due, as the reader will have observed, to the constant inability 
of the ordinary man to estimate what will be the effect of a particular proposal. 
What democracy requires is assent to results; what the referendum gives is 
assent to projects. No trade union has, for instance, desired bankruptcy, but 
many trade unions have persistently voted for scales of contributions and 
benefits which have inevitably resulted in bankruptcy. If this is the case in 



746 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 

the relatively simple issues of trade-union administration, still more does it 
apply to the infinitely complicated questions of national politics. Trade-union 
history gives therefore little support to the referendum or delegate meeting, 
and points rather to the representative assembly as the last word of democracy. 
(Voh I, p. 61.) 

But the danger lies in the sway it gives to passion and preju- 
dice, especially in periods of public stress. We need not go 
beyond the history of our own country; it is full of instances of 
popular caprice under exciting conditions. It will be remembered 
that in 1863 the new constitution which the constitutional con- 
vention of that year submitted to the voters of Illinois was 
rejected because a few members of the convention were reputed 
to be sympathizers with the states then in rebellion against the 
national government. That the rejection was not founded upon 
objections to the constitution itself was shown by the adoption a 
few years later of the constitution by another convention con- 
taining all the essential provisions of that of 1863. Well remem- 
bered are also the wild enmity that existed during those years and 
later throughout the agricultural states against the railroads, and 
the strange kinds of legislation that were attempted against them, 
in some instances with success. In a recent editorial in one of 
the Chicago dailies it was declared that during the excitement 
arising from the Civil War the operation of the initiative at that 
time would have hanged every copperhead north of Mason and 
Dixon's line. Its operation in the South at the time would have 
worked the same results upon all those who believed in the Union, 
or expressed any doubts upon the sacred character of the institu- 
tion of human slavery. Local agitation, where the majority of 
the community are flagrantly in the wrong, is of frequent 
occurrence. 

It will be said that, while communities or limited districts may 
become unbalanced, the whole people of a state will always be 
found clear-headed and in a majority for the right. Professor 
Parsons, in the opening paragraph of his book, Direct Legislation, 
points to the fact that the national Democratic platform adopted 
in Kansas City, and the national Populist platform the same year, 
both favored direct legislation, i, e., the initiative. This was 
stated as an argument in favor of the scheme. Professor Parsons 



POPULAR INITIATIVE 7^7 

failed to state, however, that in the same year sixteen states in the 
Union voted by majorities, some of them exceedingly large, for 
an unlimited issue by the government of a badly depreciated cur- 
rency, upon the theory that wealth consists of much money, no 
matter what part of it may be bogus. It is needless to ask what 
proportion of these same voters would indorse that proposition 
today. Nor is it necessary to multiply instances where whole 
communities have been committed to vagaries. 

Besides the lack of information which necessarily incapaci- 
tates the mass of the voters from deciding intelligently about 
public measures, and prejudices that too often govern them, the 
venality of large numbers must be taken into account. The 
alleged virtue of the initiative is based upon the honesty, even 
more than upon the intelligence, of the masses. Yet it is as true 
as it is deplorable that time and again results of elections, muni- 
cipal and state, if not national, have been obtained by the direct 
bribery of voters. This has occurred repeatedly in states where 
the average of intelligence and respectability is high, as well as in 
cities and wards of mixed and less enlightened populations. In 
Indiana, on the testimony of ex-Governor Durbin (and it has for 
years been common knowledge among politicians), there are tens 
of thousands of purchasable voters — voters who are in the mar- 
ket with their wares at every election. Rhode Island is as bad, or 
worse. That has been shown frequently, last by Lincoln Steffens. 
The negro vote, in northern cities especially, is always largely 
purchasable ; but it is not alone the negro, nor the foreigner, but 
Americans, white and presumably respectable. 

If direct legislation (meaning the initiative) is sound in 
theory and principle, there must be admitted some ground for the 
doctrine of anarchy — i. e., that without any restraint all will do 
right and crime become obsolete. But he has been a poor student 
who does not know that whenever a people becomes free from 
restraint, either of a strict constitutional or of an absolute govern- 
ment, such a people fails in its political experiment. Maine says : 
" Democracy is unprogressive, too often given to extortion." To 
make constitutional revision or amendments possible at any time 
and to any extent by a bare majority, which may be voting upon 



748 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 

impulse, is in reality to undermine the constitution. Monarchy 
is primeval, but unbridled democracy is not young in experiment, 
and has never worked even temporary salvation. 

Mr. Oberholtzer, a competent writer on the referendum and 
initiative, and quoted approvingly by the Referendum League, 
says : 

If a constitution is to enter into the details of government and trespass on 
those fields of action before reserved to the legislature, it cannot have the 
power of permanence which it had when it was only an outline to direct 
legislation. It must change as laws, and laws change as needs of people 
change. 

He might as well have said that with the power of the initiative 
they would change as the whims or passions of the people change, 
and that the constitution would become a mass of doubtful legis- 
lation. Mr. James Bryce dwells upon the fact that a rigid consti- 
tution prevents rash and hasty changes by legislation : " Every 
citizen is a part of the nation, and bound by duty to give time and 
thoughts to it." But this would become very inconvenient and 
burdensome if elections were multiplied, as they would be under 
a scheme of law-making by circulating petitions. 

And another word must be said as to the status which the 
legislature would have under an operative initiative law. It 
would in fact be a body without dignity, lacking power and 
authority. It is useless for the initiative advocates to pretend that 
they have ?dvy other object than to supersede the legislature. 
Professor Parsons benignly says that with the initiative "the 
legislature will be the most important advisory body in the com- 
monwealth," but he fails to point out in what way. 

Finally, the whole question is one of returning to a system of 
primitive democracy which answered such excellent purpose for a 
wandering tribe or a small village or district. The historian 
Freeman, dealing with the fact, and contemplating the growth 
and expansion of such tribe, declares that "unless the device of 
representation was hit upon, it must shrink into a despotism or an 
oligarchy." Cree, another historical writer, says : 

History does show that it took that direction and that such consequences 
resulted. Democracy must recognize some principle of restraint upon its own 
passions, and some guards against its own deficiencies. 



POPULAR INITIATIVE 749 

And another aptly says that the trouble with humankind has been 
to strike a balance because of the influence of mischievous 
demagogues. 

It is pertinent to ask : What are the leaders of socialism and 
trades-unionism struggling for? Thomas H, Benton declared 
that the safety of the country depends upon the tranquillity of the 
masses. Who are disturbing the tranquillity of the masses ? The 
problem of the popular initiative is plain and clearly defined. It 
is a fanciful theory that every voter is capable of governing and 
of administering intricate public affairs, against common-sense 
backed by universal experience ; it is the power of popular license 
against representative government and constitutional security. 
No effort to obscure it by disquisitions upon its psychological 
nature and effects — by theorizing upon choice and coercion, and 
the separation of political from business functions — can conceal 
this issue. Psychological and sociological analyses wither before 
the raw fact that with the power of the initiative absolutism is 
established and the rights of the minority have no protection. 
The idea of the right of everybody to make laws is attractive, but 
it is a dangerous experiment to submit to a large and mixed 
population. In the language of Mr. A. L. Lowell, " the concep- 
tion is bold, but it is not likely to prove of any great use to man- 
kind ; if, indeed, it does not prove to be merely a happy hunting- 
ground for extremists and fanatics." 

William Horace Brown, 

Secretary of the Civic Federatton. 
Chicago. 



26 1905 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



012 050 521 n 



